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I Left a Boy on Raecher Road

a hatless blue jean turbulence,

his heart as red as the dream cars

pinned to the walls of his bedroom.

He roughed the dormant alfalfa fields

in a flurry of tumbling snowball fight

against the hulking wind, white

and frothy as dairy farm milk.

He milked the cow by hand

pressed his ear to her bulk

& we drank it, warm and raw.

Later, he told a ghost story

set on the bathrobe widow’s property

where he pulled a rake in fall

and pushed a shovel in winter,

his hands too strong to creak

(the way mine did this morning)

and too young to wave no thanks

at her offered dollar.



~.~

My estimation: a consummate example of overdone imagery. Also somewhat top heavy.

I don't believe in estimations. Manna, the poem was bloody beautiful. You put me 'in there'. Overdone imagery, top heavy - bollocks. Did you enjoy building this vision from dust? Did you enjoy it? I know there will be critics passing their learned judgement. Stuff 'em. It is

Boss

Dylan Thomas would clap his tiny hands !
As for the Boss. Stuff him!
I've got a comment to make
You could tidy it up and connect a few lines by throwing away some "full stops".

Is that o.k. Boss or is that over the top and under the belt?

Well... a number of things I like. Please don't touch

"where he pulled a rake in fall

and pushed a shovel in winter,"


Pulled and pushed. Somehow never considered the defined difference in directions of those.

With all the lines equally spaced, I get the sense of ongoing memory thoughts, one after the other. There's a part of me that would like to see them grouped somehow. I was right in there, too. LOVED your closing, accurate depiction of how we grow and mature in helping others:

"and too young to wave no thanks

at her offered dollar."

I didn't feel at all overwhelmed by your imageries.


~ Lizzy

there's something in me that wants to group them too, but I like how it looks this way. Thanks for all the kudos, friends.

I liked this so very much. One line though that I keep looking at with the thought that there is something that seems out of place "his heart as red as the dream cars"

a heart would be red if exposed to the open air, otherwise blue.

are you meaning to say it was so?

yet either way I would think that red would be hard to let go of as it is easy to imagine that the dream car was red.

or could the red heart be the way you were seeing him? : his heart to you being like his dream car to him? Maybe you are describing also the dreams you had pinned on your walls.
Jack

If a person is alive, his heart is not blue. At least not half of it. Even if he is dead, he'd have to be so hypoxic he'd be dead times ten to have the other half of his heart turn blue. When blood comes into your heart from the body, it goes into 2 chambers. From there, it goes all around your lungs and gets oxygenated, then it goes back to the other two heart chambers and out to the rest of the body.

Anyway, I used red for reasons outside of cardiology. If I'd said his heart were yellow, would you be asking me these questions?

I thought all adolescent boys had red dream cars. Shiny candy apple red race cars that make as much noise as they do speed. (This was only a partly real character from my life, with parts taken from a few different boys, and one memory of my Mom's.)

If a person is alive, his heart is not blue.

It can be .

If I'd said his heart were yellow, would you be asking me these questions?

I'd just think he was jaundiced or a coward... maybe both. Thanks for the cardiology lesson, though


~ Lizzy

[Pardon the throwaway responses ~ couldn't resist your question to Jack.]

Actually, now that I think about it, I'm not sure if I had that quite right. Something tells me I have it wrong. Oh well. Jack will set me straight. I never took anatomy, so I am trying to remember from a single day that I knew this stuff. And now I am remembering something about the upper chambers pushing blood into the lower ones. I'm all mixed up. My blood is purple. Can I have a purple heart?

ok. I got it. I'm right on both counts. Here it is. Blood comes from the body and goes into one chamber. From there it goes into the next chamber, but I don't know the directions. From their, it goes to the lungs. Then it comes back - it's third chamber. The third chamber pushes it into the one that will pump it out to the body. I think that's all right. Phew. What a bloody ...

Can I have a purple heart?

It's yours and I'm sure you earned it .

Just read your additional. Did you Google it that fast or just experience total recall?


~ Lizzy

recall - don't know if it's total.

a hatless blue jean turbulence,

his heart as red as the dream cars

The "heart" thing is just tossed in with no tangible reason other than to work in the word 'red.' You go from telling of clothes to jumping inside his chest. How about making the red come from clothes also? Red shirt. Red scarf. That would make sense in the world of the poem.
pinned to the walls of his bedroom.

He roughed the dormant alfalfa fields

If read aloud, this is clunky. I think 'roughed' or 'dormant' need re-thinking. Something that would allow for assonance/alliteration. For instance, 'frozen' instead of 'dormant' echoes the F (and R) sound of rough and in alfalfa/fields.
in a flurry of tumbling snowball fight

against the hulking wind, white

and frothy as dairy farm milk.

He milked the cow by hand
"...by hand" is telling. Show your readers. Did his warm hands pull at teats with his ear pressed to her bulk?
pressed his ear to her bulk

& we drank it, warm and raw.
I think warm/raw need to be switched. It reads aloud better ending on an M sounds than AW.
Later, he told a ghost story

set on the bathrobe widow’s property
You make your readers do too much work with 'bathrobe.' I'd at least italicize the term.
where he pulled a rake in fall

and pushed a shovel in winter,

his hands too strong to creak
I couldn't figure out why you used the term, "strong" till I saw you used 'young' below. I don't think "too strong to creak" makes a lot of sense. Maybe bring the "young" (too young to creak) up here and find another adjective for the line below. I don't think "young" really works for how you have it.
(the way mine did this morning)

and too young to wave no thanks

at her offered dollar.

L

Gosh, Laurie, thanks. You've given me a lot of great suggestions. I like your choice of frozen a whole lot, and other things too.

I didn't know that about the heart. I thought I was wise in thinking that it was blue because it was not exposed to air. That in the state of quietly resting inside a closed body that it was mostly blue.

Manna wrote:I thought all adolescent boys had red dream cars. Shiny candy apple red race cars that make as much noise as they do speed. (This was only a partly real character from my life, with parts taken from a few different boys, and one memory of my Mom's.)

The dreams that I had were of trains. Trains that could get me away from where I was. I thought that all adolescent girls had dream guys that could get them away from where they were.

If you would have used yellow I would have suggested red.

Jack who still can't help feeling that his heart is blue